| This dissertation tests whether the discrimination frame used by disability rights activists and other opponents of assisted suicide persuades members of particular groups to oppose legalization. Disability rights activists are engaged in a decades-long fight for legal protections against discrimination in education, the workplace, and in healthcare. In the healthcare arena, disabled people routinely encounter pressure to forego medical treatment because of misperceptions about their quality of life. With the advent of the right-to-die movement and campaigns to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, disability rights leaders are concerned this misperception threatens to pressure disabled people into committing suicide, with assistance.;This dissertation draws on literature about social movements and framing theory, as well as public opinion methodologies, to explain the origin and impact of the disability rights perspective. Elite interviews with leaders of groups that use this frame informed hypotheses that were then tested in an experimental online public opinion survey. This measures whether the groups thought to be most (and least) likely to be persuaded by the disability discrimination frame, once exposed to the argument, actually were persuaded. Random assignment was used to channel participants into one of four conditions: No Frames (control); Autonomy Only; Discrimination Only; or Both Frames (Autonomy and Discrimination). After receiving the treatment, survey takers were allowed to give both open- and closed-ended responses to the experimental stimulus, providing evidence of their thought process and ultimate evaluation.;Interview participants identified six groups as most likely to be persuaded by the disability discrimination frame: political liberals/progressives, Democrats, minorities, those with low-income, people who attend religious services, and members of the disability community. To these were added women and seniors, following other research. For comparison, the groups mirroring these were also analyzed (e.g. conservatives, Republicans, whites, etc.). The survey results are instructive. The only groups that registered statistically significant opposition to legalization were conservatives and Republicans, but only in the Discrimination Only condition. All other groups in all other framing conditions supported legalizing assisted suicide, albeit at different levels. Within particular groups and conditions there is evidence that the disability discrimination frame weakens support for legalization. Other findings suggest that this is associated with recipients of the discrimination frame using it to evaluate assisted suicide. |
